Medical marijuana (marihuana) production in Canada must comply with the Health Canada imposed regulations, which are among the strictest in the world. With respect to the plants themselves little guidance is given to any specific growth method, but certain conditions are imposed. Growing areas may not give off odors or emit pollen. And, final product must be capable of passing strict lab testing for both inorganics such as pesticides or heavy metals which may not be present, and also organics such as mold spores, mildew, bacteria etc., which also may not be present.
Given these requirements certain growing conditions are thus dictated. The plants must be protected from exposure to any of the above sources of contamination in their air or water. They may not be treated with any pesticides that might end up in the final product which are not permitted there. The growing conditions should prevent the formation of any mold or mildew even if there is growth potential. Odors and pollen must be controlled. Human factors of contamination must be eliminated as much as possible.
From a commercial standpoint other conditions are dictated. Whatever facility is used to grow the plants, the growing area is preferably compact and space efficient, resource frugal, designed to minimize human resources, designed to minimize and isolate crop loss, designed to minimize growth time of a crop, adaptable to existing buildings and structures, designed to allow for product customization for market differentiation, designed to minimize the knowledge needed to successfully operate the system and designed to allow for easy consultation with experts if there is a problem.
In light of the above conditions, a system for managing plant growth which meets all the regulatory requirements and produces optimized yields of customized products at an accelerated growth rate compared to other methods of production while using less resources is desirable. Such systems would ideally be fully automated to minimize human contact with the plants, to allow the system to operate with minimal human resources, and to notify an operator when attention is required rather than having to be watched constantly.